Book Heritage Lab

In 2016, Prof. Lieve Watteeuw launched the Book Heritage Lab – KU Leuven. The BHL is an innovative expertise lab of KU Leuven for research and conservation of manuscripts, early printed books and documentary heritage. Illuminare and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies – as experts and keepers of the KU Leuven’s documentary heritage – took the initiative to establish the BHL for diagnosis and research of the material history of medieval and early modern paper and parchment artefacts, with a special focus on production, preservation, scientific imaging and conservation. The researchers of the BHL and the Imaging Lab (University Library) are closely collaborating to establish protocols and data to reveal sources of artistic production and degradation characteristics of fragile documentary cultural heritage artefacts. The BHL is coordinator of several ongoing and recently obtained research and conservation projects such as 3PI ( Diagnosis of Papyrus Parchment Paper through Advanced Imaging), RICH, FINGERPRINT, ArtGarden, the Khirbet Mird Papyri Project, Hildegard van Bingens’ Symphonia and the KU Leuven Charter Project.